LIST OF MAPS ix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi
INTRODUCTION 3
CHAPTER 1 The Origins of the Korean War 10
CHAPTER 2 The Diplomacy of Confrontation and Consolidation 47
CHAPTER 3 Diplomacy Fails: The UN Counteroffensive and Chinese Intervention 85
CHAPTER 4 Limiting the War 127
CHAPTER 5 The Dimensions of Collective Action 167
CHAPTER 6 Armistice Talks: Origins and Initial Stages 204
CHAPTER 7 Progress 236
CHAPTER 8 Deadlock 268
CHAPTER 9 Concluding an Armistice 308
CHAPTER 10 The Korean War as International History 348
NOTES 371
BIBLIOGRAPHY 447

This first truly international history of the Korean War argues that by its timing, its course, and its outcome it functioned as a substitute for World War III. Stueck draws on recently available materials from seven countries, plus the archives of the United Nations, presenting a detailed narrative of the diplomacy of the conflict and a broad assessment of its critical role in the Cold War. He emphasizes the contribution of the United Nations, which at several key points in the conflict provided an important institutional framework within which less powerful nations were able to restrain the aggressive tendencies of the United States.
In Stueck's view, contributors to the U.N. cause in Korea provided support not out of any abstract commitment to a universal system of collective security but because they saw an opportunity to influence U.S. policy. Chinese intervention in Korea in the fall of 1950 brought with it the threat of world war, but at that time and in other instances prior to the armistice in July 1953, America's NATO allies and Third World neutrals succeeded in curbing American adventurism. While conceding the tragic and brutal nature of the war, Stueck suggests that it helped to prevent the occurrence of an even more destructive conflict in Europe.

William Stueck is Professor of History at the University of Georgia. Among his works is The Road to Confrontation: American Policy toward China and Korea, 1947-1950.